Why the West is Going to L: Individualism Does Not Spell Libertarianism

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The election results over the past six years speak for themselves: the Interior West has been voting more Democratic. Yet there is widespread disagreement among political analysts as to why this potentially momentous shift has occurred.

One popular explanation is that as a big spending but socially conservative Republican Party has degenerated into a "God and government coalition," leave-us-alone voters in the Libertarian West have fled the GOP and taken refuge in the Democrats' tolerant embrace.

Heady stuff, but there's one problem: the Libertarian West does not exist.

As the Democrats make gains in the Interior West, Goldwater Republicans have as little reason to cheer as their big tent-mates at James Dobson's headquarters in Colorado Springs. The West's constituency for bigger government and reduced economic freedom has been building and making its presence felt.

Four of the six states that voted to raise the minimum wage were located in this supposed bastion of anti-statism. The government-mandated wage increase passed with 66 percent of the vote in Arizona. A similar initiative won 63 percent in Idaho. In Montana, the minimum wage rose in a 73 percent landslide. Only in Colorado, where the increase passed with 53 percent, was the vote even close.

And Colorado's Democratic trend has hardly been driven by recognizably libertarian sentiment. In 2005, voters there effectively raised their own taxes to increase education spending by approving a referendum suspending the government-limiting Taxpayer Bill of Rights for five years. Last November, Coloradans elected a governor committed to increased spending on health care, education, and welfare.

In the libertarian Cato Institute's 2006 Fiscal Policy Report Card, Bill Richardson of New Mexico was the highest-scoring Democratic governor in the Interior West with a "C." Gov. Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming earned a "D." Govs. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Brian Schweitzer of Montana were awarded "F's."

Schweitzer is supposed to be an example of the new Libertarian Democrat because the governor's position on the Second Amendment is consistent with his state's gun culture. But that was also true of Howard Dean, who received an "A" from the National Rifle Association when he was governor of Vermont.

In fact, Schweitzer is an economic populist who rails against big business, advocates public health insurance, and favors increased environmental regulations. Other Western Democrats have succeeded by running on a similar platform. Fellow Montanan Jon Tester, whose defeat of Republican Sen. Conrad Burns secured a Democratic Senate, opposes gun control and the USA Patriot Act. Yet he also supports Medicare Part D price controls and more restrictive campaign-finance laws while opposing Social Security privatization.

Many of the oft-mentioned Western demographic trends are likely to make economic populism even more appealing. Hispanics and blue state Pacific Coast refugees, particularly ex-Californians, represent powerful potential constituencies for activist government. Universal health care, stricter regulations and higher minimum wages may be popular -- but they are not libertarian.

Defenders of the Libertarian West might protest that I am placing too much emphasis on economics. Because voters in this region are skeptical and independent, the argument goes, they are turned off by the moralistic busybodies of the religious right.

Yet, even here the results are inconclusive. Socially conservative candidates fare better in the Interior West than in the Northeast. Just this November, Nevadans rejected a ballot initiative to decriminalize marijuana, Arizonans denied bail to illegal immigrants, Coloradans banned domestic partnerships and Idaho rebuffed gay marriage.

Winning Democrats haven't entirely rejected conservative rhetoric on God, guns and gays, either. Schweitzer opposes same-sex marriage; new Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter is to his party's right on abortion. But even if it is true that Western states are souring on social conservatism, cultural liberalism is not necessarily libertarianism.

Many analysts confuse the Interior West's strong tradition of individualism -- which can sometimes be marshaled on behalf of smaller government -- for libertarianism. The region's new Democratic officeholders are, at best, as inconsistent in their support for smaller government and individual freedom as the Republicans they replaced.

States such as Colorado, Montana and Arizona do, in many respects, appear to be becoming more liberal -- just not in the classical sense.